Dementia represents a substantial threat to the self. However, to date, there is no reliable way to measure how threatened people feel by dementia. This article reports on two online studies. In Study 1, 248 participants rated statements about dementia according to their threat to well-being. In Study 2, 99 participants (all students at the University of the West of England) completed the emerging scale (the Threat of Dementia Scale or ToDS). We validated this by examining its associations with conceptually related measures, including the revised Fraboni Scale of Ageism and the Fear of Alzheimer’s Disease Scale. Study 1 yielded 13 statements that were highly intercorrelated and comprised a single factor. In Study 2, the ToDS demonstrated good construct validity and acceptable test–retest reliability. Higher levels of distancing predicted lower scores on the ToDS. The ToDS is a reliable and valid instrument that is the first statistically validated method of examining the extent to which dementia threatens well-being.

痴呆症对自我构成重大威胁。然而，迄今为止，还没有可靠的方法来衡量人们对痴呆症的威胁程度。本文报道了两项在线研究。在研究 1 中，248 名参与者根据痴呆症对健康的威胁对有关痴呆症的陈述进行评分。在研究 2 中，99 名参与者（所有西英格兰大学的学生）完成了新兴量表（痴呆症威胁量表或 ToDS）。我们通过检查其与概念相关测量的关联来验证这一点，包括修订后的弗拉博尼年龄歧视量表和阿尔茨海默病恐惧量表。研究 1 得出了 13 个高度相关且包含单一因素的陈述。在研究 2 中，ToDS 表现出良好的结构效度和可接受的重测可靠性。距离越远，ToDS 得分就会越低。 ToDS 是一种可靠且有效的工具，是第一个经过统计验证的方法来检查痴呆症对健康的威胁程度。